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Case Study

IceLegends SMP

A vanilla-first Romanian Minecraft SMP built for clean 3–4 month seasons.

The Problem

Running a community SMP means balancing plugin depth against vanilla feel, managing a world-reset cycle, and keeping operations simple enough for a solo admin. IceLegends SMP solves this with 11 carefully chosen plugins, strict feature gating per a "vanilla-first" principle, and fully automated backups and world resets.

My Role

Designed, configured, and deployed solo — server architecture, 11-plugin selection and configuration, LuckPerms permission model, economy and nation design, Docker infrastructure, and Cloudflare Tunnel ingress for Dynmap.

Highlights

  • PaperMC 1.21 on Docker with a hard 11-plugin cap — every plugin is justified and none are redundant
  • Towny nations with seasonal quests (Quests + Citizens NPCs) and a single manually-spawned MythicMobs boss per season
  • AureliumSkills passive bonuses only — active abilities disabled to preserve vanilla combat (P-01)
  • DiscordSRV bridge logs every death, join, and chat event to dedicated Discord channels in real time
  • Daily automated backups with 7-day retention; resource world resets every Monday at 05:00 via cron

Stack

PaperMC 1.21DockerCloudflare TunnelLuckPermsTownyAureliumSkillsMythicMobsDiscordSRVDynmap

Constraints

  • Solo admin — every operation must complete in under 10 minutes (P-02).
  • Vanilla-first (P-01): if any plugin disappeared tomorrow, the game must continue unchanged.
  • 11-plugin hard cap — every addition must displace something or prove unique, irreplaceable value.

System Architecture

Edge
Cloudflare Tunnel (Dynmap web map)
TCP :25565 open (Minecraft clients)
Runtime
Docker + docker-compose
itzg/minecraft-server image
Core
PaperMC 1.21
Vault
LuckPerms
EssentialsX
CoreProtect
Gameplay
Towny
AureliumSkills
ShopGUI+
Quests + Citizens
MythicMobs
Multiverse-Core
Ops
DiscordSRV bridge
Daily backup cron (04:00)
Weekly world reset cron (Mon 05:00)

Key Trade-offs

The decisions worth defending — what I chose, what I turned down, and why.

Plugin count cap

Chose

Hard cap at 11 plugins

Rejected

Unlimited plugin stack

Each plugin is a maintenance surface and a potential conflict point. The cap forces prioritisation and keeps the dependency graph legible for a solo admin.

Public ingress for Dynmap

Chose

Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports)

Rejected

Expose :8123 directly via UFW

No origin IP exposure, free DDoS protection, and zero firewall rule maintenance — the same pattern used by the IceLegends portfolio site.

AureliumSkills scope

Chose

Passive bonuses only, active abilities disabled

Rejected

Full AureliumSkills feature set including active combat abilities

Active abilities alter vanilla combat — a direct violation of P-01. Passive bonuses reward playtime additively without changing the combat model.

Season lifecycle

Chose

Full world reset every 3–4 months

Rejected

Incremental map expansion with no reset

Resets keep the world fresh, prevent terrain exhaustion, and give every new player an equal start — critical for community health in a small SMP.

What I'd Do Differently

An honest retrospective — the stuff I'd change with more time, more users, or a second pass.

  1. 1Add a staging compose stack so plugin updates can be tested before touching the live season — one bad update cost several hours of rollback work.
  2. 2Move backup storage off-site from day one; local-only archives are a single hardware failure away from a full season loss.
  3. 3Wire Dynmap as a named Docker service rather than relying on the host port, so the Cloudflare Tunnel config survives container IP reassignment on restart.

Technical Deep-Dive

Architecture, specifications, and implementation details.

14 — Backup & Recovery

"

Backup schedule, restore runbooks, operational procedures

#Backup Schedule

TypeFrequencyTimeRetentionLocation
Full server backupDaily04:007 days/opt/mc-backups/
Resource worldNOT backed upResets weekly anyway
Season archiveEnd of seasonManualForever/opt/mc-archives/

#scripts/backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

RCON="docker exec mc rcon-cli"
BACKUP_DIR="/opt/mc-backups"
DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M)
KEEP_DAYS=7

mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

echo "[$(date)] Starting backup..."

# Pause world saving to ensure consistent snapshot
$RCON 'save-off'
$RCON 'save-all flush'
sleep 5

# Create archive
tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/backup_$DATE.tar.gz" /opt/minecraft/data/ \
  --exclude='data/resurse'   # resource world excluded — resets anyway

# Resume saving
$RCON 'save-on'

# Cleanup old backups
find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "backup_*.tar.gz" -mtime +$KEEP_DAYS -delete

SIZE=$(du -sh "$BACKUP_DIR/backup_$DATE.tar.gz" | cut -f1)
echo "[$(date)] Backup complete: backup_$DATE.tar.gz ($SIZE)"
# Crontab entry
0 4 * * * /opt/minecraft/scripts/backup.sh >> /var/log/mc-backup.log 2>&1

#Runbook: RB-01 — Server Crash

TRIGGER: Container stops unexpectedly / players can't connect

1. docker compose ps
   → Check if mc container is running

2. docker compose logs mc --tail=50
   → Find ERROR or Exception — identify cause

3. df -h
   → Check disk isn't full

4. free -h
   → Check RAM (OOM kill?)

5. If OOM: increase MEMORY in .env → docker compose up -d

6. If plugin error: identify plugin name in logs
   → Rename data/plugins/ProblemPlugin.jar → ProblemPlugin.jar.disabled
   → docker compose restart mc

7. If startup fails completely:
   → docker compose down
   → mv data/plugins data/plugins_disabled
   → docker compose up -d (bare server)
   → Re-enable plugins one by one

8. If downtime > 5 minutes: post in Discord #alerts

#Runbook: RB-02 — Grief Response

TRIGGER: Player reports blocks were destroyed/stolen

1. /co inspect
   → Click affected blocks to see who placed/broke them

2. /co lookup u:SuspectName t:24h
   → Review full activity log

3. Confirm it's grief (not accidental damage)

4. /co rollback u:SuspectName t:2h r:30
   → Rollback grief (2h window, 30-block radius)

5. Verify rollback visually

6. Take action:
   → First offense: /warn SuspectName Grief
   → Repeat offense: /tempban SuspectName 7d Grief repetat
   → Severe: /ban SuspectName Grief sever

7. Post in Discord #staff-log:
   "Grief by [Name] at [coords], rollback done, action: [warn/ban]"

#Runbook: RB-03 — Backup Restore

TRIGGER: World corruption / accidental mass deletion

1. List available backups:
   ls -lht /opt/mc-backups/

2. Stop server:
   docker compose down

3. Save current state (safety copy):
   mv ./data ./data_pre_restore_$(date +%Y%m%d)

4. Extract backup:
   tar -xzf /opt/mc-backups/backup_TARGET_DATE.tar.gz -C /opt/minecraft/

5. Start server:
   docker compose up -d

6. Verify:
   docker compose logs -f mc
   → Wait for "Done!" message
   → Log in and inspect previously affected areas

7. If restore failed → revert:
   docker compose down
   mv data_pre_restore_DATE data
   docker compose up -d

8. Delete safety copy after 48h if all is stable:
   rm -rf ./data_pre_restore_DATE

#Runbook: RB-04 — TPS Emergency

TRIGGER: TPS drops below 15

1. Check TPS:
   docker exec mc rcon-cli tps

2. Check resources:
   docker stats mc --no-stream

3. If RAM > 85%:
   → Increase MEMORY in .env
   → docker compose restart mc

4. If CPU pegged:
   → Reduce view-distance immediately:
   docker exec mc rcon-cli "view-distance 6"
   → Check entity count: /paper entity

5. If no improvement in 5 minutes:
   docker compose restart mc

6. Post in Discord #alerts if players affected

#Season Archive (End of Season)

# Run manually at season end
mkdir -p /opt/mc-archives

# Create season archive
tar -czf /opt/mc-archives/season1_$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz \
  /opt/minecraft/data/

echo "Season 1 archived: $(du -sh /opt/mc-archives/season1_*.tar.gz)"

# Clean data for Season 2
docker compose down
rm -rf /opt/minecraft/data/
docker compose up -d

#Related Documents

  • Security checklist → 12_security.md
  • Season lifecycle → 15_season_lifecycle.md
  • Performance monitoring → 13_performance.md
~ End of Document ~
Kiwi